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I come closer to him, lying quietly
on the beach: docile eyes,
legs folded under his powerful trunk,
short golden fur, tuft of soft locks
like tow of wool around his horns
tempting me to sink my fingers in, to snuggle
up to the fragrant body, to feel his strength and warmth.
Forgetting myself I fondle his neck, my fingers touching
the folds of skin. Sleepily he lifts his head and looks
into my eyes so ardently I can’t resist
bestriding his broad back. Wiry hair
tickles my thighs and crotch, penetrating my lips,
makes me squirm and…
Suddenly he springs up and plunges into the sea.
White froth splashes from his waist to the arch of my legs,
horror and lust clench my throat…
Finally he goes ashore on sunny Crete,
and I slide down exhausted on the soft grass and, o’ God!
he kneels down over me carefully
on all fours, and I feel suddenly how hot,
thick and slimy his thing is as it penetrates me
tenderly, insistently, copying the rite
that Gaea sets for the living,
and how my joyful womb already reads, apprehends,
and sorts his liquid shape…
*
Daedalus finishes his work…the heavy breath of night,
muted sighs walk the corridors of the palace: “Pasiphaë,
Pasiphaë” heaving my bosom like the sea…
He finishes upholstering the wood with skin, golden fur glistens.
I touch the new guise anxiously, my lust
spurs on the toiling craftsman.
Art is an imitation, a copy of the works of the Gods.
Minos, with what desires is your sap poisoned?
Now to climb through the narrow door and lay down on soft cushions.
Already the bull squirms in the arena. Quod licet? © ?
What shape now, what message
will my greedy womb scroll down,
and what ripen into the small world of harmony?
*
I wove Europa on the bull’s back,
Danaë drinking rain as parched soil drinks,
Leda swooning under the swan —
as I was taught by Pallas,
only twisting my thread a bit thinner,
and stretching my warp tighter,
moving the bobbin more nimbly.
My lively pictures of passion surpassed
her boring Areopagus with dry voices of old men.
My imagination lifted me from the earth
but not to the sky, not to the Gods so bored on their thrones.
It never fell so low as grandiose self-portraiture.
Everyone could see it.
And then she said: Turn into a spider! ugly creature
with eight limbs in the sea of imagination
hanging between sky and earth.
And now my textile is only
a strange pattern of the psyche, a web
for your thoughts, dear reader.
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